LebGeeks

pikatore

Member

Apple founder Steve Jobs talks about Flash

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/

Apple has a long relationship with Adobe. In fact, we met Adobe’s founders when they were in their proverbial garage. Apple was their first big customer, adopting their Postscript language for our new Laserwriter printer. Apple invested in Adobe and owned around 20% of the company for many years. The two companies worked closely together to pioneer desktop publishing and there were many good times. Since that golden era, the companies have grown apart. Apple went through its near death experience, and Adobe was drawn to the corporate market with their Acrobat products. Today the two companies still work together to serve their joint creative customers – Mac users buy around half of Adobe’s Creative Suite products – but beyond that there are few joint interests.

I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts on Adobe’s Flash products so that customers and critics may better understand why we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. Adobe has characterized our decision as being primarily business driven – they say we want to protect our App Store – but in reality it is based on technology issues. Adobe claims that we are a closed system, and that Flash is open, but in fact the opposite is true. Let me explain...

Interesting article. Worth a read.

arithma

Member

Re: Apple founder Steve Jobs talks about Flash

When steve jobs talk, boldly, you have to listen and learn. Not the words of truth, but how to become a CEO.
Get the power, rule the world, burn your enemies.

Kassem

Member

Re: Apple founder Steve Jobs talks about Flash

Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers.

That's just lame... His arrogance is making him blind to see that Flash is and will always be the future. Check this out: Multi-touch capabilities of Flash Player 10.1

rolf

Member

Re: Apple founder Steve Jobs talks about Flash

That's an interesting read. It seems that blocking flash dont really directly hurt the customer, but will result in lots of graphic artists and animators who use adobe as their primary platform to be blocked out of iWhatever.

Joe

Member

Re: Apple founder Steve Jobs talks about Flash

Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.

The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content. And the 200,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games.

New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.

I couldn't agree more. Steve Jobs is far from being stupid. He's running one of the greatest computer companies of all time. What he's simply showing is the shortcomings of Flash as a mobile platform. We have discussed this in previous threads.

Adobe still figures that people need their technology simply to achieve aesthetics. It is nice to see someone like Steve Jobs believing in open web standards (that are fully independent of any single one corporation) and not falling for a petty corporate business deal :)

pikatore

Member

Re: Apple founder Steve Jobs talks about Flash

Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers.

That's just lame... His arrogance is making him blind to see that Flash is and will always be the future. Check this out: Multi-touch capabilities of Flash Player 10.1

While I'm not an Apple fan, Jobs has a point... this is one of the few things I agree with him on.

Existing flash websites and games do have a lot of rollover features that touch devices are unable to activate. Flash is designed with the mouse in mind, not the touch device.

This site, for example, is completely unusable by a touch device, even if it was the most powerful device in the world (the website is an experiment, but you can understand how it's possible to actually make a flash site that is completely unusable for touch devices):

http://dontclick.it/

Although multi-touch might be supported in a newer version of Flash, that hardly helps the situation when you look at past Flash apps and websites... unless you're interested in rewriting them. And good luck in convincing Flash developers to always keep touch devices in mind when writing future apps and websites.

And the performance issue will ALWAYS be a factor. The tradeoff is usually not worth it, unless you're doing something NECESSARY that ONLY FLASH CAN ACHIEVE. Flash should fulfil specific design objectives, and you should need a very good REASON to create a particular site in Flash. It is NOT a viable replacement for proper markup, and never will be. They are two different things.

I had an HTC Touch Pro 2 before my current phone, and it was pretty fast with it's games. I then downloaded a Flash version of arkanoid. I noticed the phone's battery draining rapidly and it's internals heating up just over dealing with a Flash app. I then downloaded an actual coded version of arkanoid which uses Windows Mobile's visual libraries to display content, and it was smooth and light on resources.

Flash on the PC can now route processing power to the graphics card as I understand it (but only for PCs, not Mac or Linux), but it will ALWAYS be at it's core a software rendering platform, which alienates a shitload of users. The most important and limiting factor that a Flash website or app actually has a minimum system requirement to run smoothly. Think about it... your website needs a computer OVER A CERTAIN SPEED to function properly!

My phone can view my personal site (www.joshpike.com) with fantastic performance, and there is an Iphone version of the site which easily plugs into existing content with little extra effort. I used an old Pentium 3 computer to view my site last week (using Firefox), and it performed just fine. A flash version of the site with the same capabilities and features would bring any phone or low-end PC to it's knees.

Which brings me back to a point I make very frequently: Flash is a niche platform, because it simply is only available to certain platforms with certain speeds. By trying to go all flash (not just in websites but also in apps), you alienate a huge amount of potential viewers, both mobile and PC. I am not a Flash hater, or think it should be scrapped, because it does things that HTML/CSS/Javascript would have a hard time emulating. I appreciate what Flash offers.

BUT the thing is that flash doesn't have certain abilities that markup has (important abilities), and this should always be kept in mind when designing anything Flash related. It has purposes, but it is bad practice to rely on it 100% for website design and UI, ESPECIALLY when no alternatives are specified.

If you make a full flash site, have a non-flash site available for those who can't view Flash. Make sure your Flash site has complete visibility and transparency with regard to search engine spiders. Be conscious of who you will be excluding when you create your site, and make sure that they aren't ignored. Have accessibility at the top of your list of priorities.

Last edited by pikatore (April 30 2010)

Joe

Member

Re: Apple founder Steve Jobs talks about Flash

I loved the dontclick.it website!!

Maybe create a jQuery equivalent, with exclusive mouseover() ?

pikatore

Member

Re: Apple founder Steve Jobs talks about Flash

I loved the dontclick.it website!!

Maybe create a jQuery equivalent, with exclusive mouseover() ?

That's something I would like to see.

kareem_nasser

Member

Re: Apple founder Steve Jobs talks about Flash

When steve jobs talk, boldly, you have to listen and learn. Not the words of truth, but how to become a CEO.
Get the power, rule the world, burn your enemies.

As i said before Steve Jobs=Marketing Genuis=more profit=Shareholders love.

nuclearcat

Member

Re: Apple founder Steve Jobs talks about Flash

Jobs is just one more stubborn guy or just he have strategic ideas (but careless to customers).

It is trivial with his power to do flash on his OS, it is trivial also to limit it's power consumption and leave _CHOICE_ for _CUSTOMER_ who PAY for their product.
Close it to sandbox, limit CPU resource, make it off by default, but leave way to make at least simple flash to work. Chrome/Google did it in best way (plugin isolation).

pikatore

Member

Re: Apple founder Steve Jobs talks about Flash

Agreed. Apple doesn't have to change it's hardware to allow Flash to run on it's devices. They are just being asshats.

My Iphone is jailbroken and I've got it doing 101 things that wouldn't have been possible with Apple's original OS. Steve Jobs is ultimately an asshole for blocking Flash on Apple devices, even if he brings up valid points about the downsides of Flash. Leave the choice to the customer.

Last edited by pikatore (April 30 2010)

xterm

Moderator

Re: Apple founder Steve Jobs talks about Flash

We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.

This is very true and very critical.

Kassem

Member

Re: Apple founder Steve Jobs talks about Flash

Jobs is just one more stubborn guy or just he have strategic ideas (but careless to customers).

It is trivial with his power to do flash on his OS, it is trivial also to limit it's power consumption and leave _CHOICE_ for _CUSTOMER_ who PAY for their product.
Close it to sandbox, limit CPU resource, make it off by default, but leave way to make at least simple flash to work. Chrome/Google did it in best way (plugin isolation).

Amen! Customers have the right to have a way of viewing Flash in their iPhones. Regardless of what he thinks about Flash, I'm sure many iPhone users actually like what Flash has to offer. Just support the platform and let customers decide whether to use it or not! It's that simple you idiot!

If you make a full flash site, have a non-flash site available for those who can't view Flash. Make sure your Flash site has complete visibility and transparency with regard to search engine spiders. Be conscious of who you will be excluding when you create your site, and make sure that they aren't ignored. Have accessibility at the top of your list of priorities.

After our long discussions on several threads (Flash lovers vs Flash haters), you guys made good point that I've taken into consideration. Consequently, I decided to get into the world of HTML/CSS/JS/jQuery and AJAX (I am still a beginner when it comes to those technologies - I admit). But that doesn't mean I'll be giving up on Flash or anything like that. It's just that I will be developing sites in both technologies: old school mark-up and Flash. This would be a good idea when developing websites.

xterm

Moderator

Re: Apple founder Steve Jobs talks about Flash

After our long discussions on several threads (Flash lovers vs Flash haters), you guys made good point that I've taken into consideration. Consequently, I decided to get into the world of HTML/CSS/JS/jQuery and AJAX (I am still a beginner when it comes to those technologies - I admit). But that doesn't mean I'll be giving up on Flash or anything like that. It's just that I will be developing sites in both technologies: old school mark-up and Flash. This would be a good idea when developing websites.

Platforms and Technologies complement, not replace.

Keep that in mind.

rolf

Member

Re: Apple founder Steve Jobs talks about Flash

Leave the choice to the customer.

I believe that's where Microsoft and IE's market share came from.

BTW, http://dontclick.it/ is great.
Although it's kinda hard on the CPU. I can understand the concern for mobile devices.

So, yeah, flash is great, why throw away this tool? and do apple offer any alternative?
I think it's not something new with apple, to leave out technologies that we take for granted on PC, only releasing them years later in a big fanfare.
Maybe that's what keeps them from sweeping the market!
Too bad for them.

But after all, apple people arent super-people. To claim 10 hours battery life, they had to make some sacrifices, I guess...!

Last edited by rolf (April 30 2010)

Kassem

Member

Re: Apple founder Steve Jobs talks about Flash

http://dontclick.it/ is simply a master piece... I actually loved it. Hopefully I'll be able to do stuff with Flash of THIS quality someday... soon! Lots of respect for the developer.

Joe

Member

Re: Apple founder Steve Jobs talks about Flash

dontclick performed really badly on my netbook. Not only did it lag (somewhat), but also the interface  didn't resize to fit my (small) display (8inch).

Netbooks are the most widely sold computers today, far ahead of notebooks (regular laptops) and desktops (or Macs). Flash is not optimized for them at all. Here goes yet another limitation of Flash.

I'm not trolling, I'm pointing out that Flash isn't perfect and cannot be the only skill of a web designer.  Again.

Kassem

Member

Re: Apple founder Steve Jobs talks about Flash

@ rahmu, what are the dimensions of the netbook's screen?

And just to make something clear, it's not Flash's inability to adjust to screen size. It is actually the fault of the developer. Top quality flash websites should be developed in smaller size and then there should be some code which resizes the site according to the width and height of the browser. But I still believe that dontclick.it is a good website, maybe the developer doesn't want the site to be viewed in small screens so he just over-looked them. But honestly, what website looks good in a small screen anyway? Whether it's Flash or CSS, you will not get the full experience of the website by viewing it in a small screen or an old browser...

pikatore

Member

Re: Apple founder Steve Jobs talks about Flash

But honestly, what website looks good in a small screen anyway? Whether it's Flash or CSS, you will not get the full experience of the website by viewing it in a small screen or an old browser...

Well, the typical horizontal resolution for a netbook is 1024 pixels. They rarely get smaller than that.

I always stick to a 960 width grid when I design my sites, so it will work on pretty much all netbooks. Besides, there's always scaling for the ultra small netbooks, something many flash sites don't allow, or if allowed, probably create a huge amount of screwups as mouse hotspots are recalculated.

Last edited by pikatore (May 1 2010)

Georges

Member

Re: Apple founder Steve Jobs talks about Flash

I loved the dontclick.it website!!

Maybe create a jQuery equivalent, with exclusive mouseover() ?

The first thing i did was clicking...